In an 18 page complaint, the plaintiffs said, "the discrepancy between advertised and available capacity is substantial and beyond any possible reasonable expectation. For the Devices, the shortfall ranges from 18.1-23.1%." Lawyers for the plaintiff argue that average consumers do not expect the discrepancy between the advertised level of capacity and the available capacity of Apple devices. The discrepancy is a fact that the plaintiffs believe Apple "knows, but conceals and fails to disclose in its advertising, marketing or promotional materials."

Apple faces a class action lawsuit alleging the company failed to disclose the storage space used by iOS 8.

Part of the storage problem on iOS devices may stem from the fact that Apple segregates storage space into a media partition and a root partition. The media partition is the portion of the device that is available to the consumer, while control of the root partition rests exclusively with Apple and consumers have no ability to reduce the portion of the storage apportioned to Apple (except for "jailbreaking" the device). The complaint alleges that "the root partition is larger than it needs to be and viable storage capacity on the root partition side can remain unused even as the media partition becomes full and a consumer is instructed to purchase iCloud space from Apple."

This lack of storage space, naturally falls hardest on users who purchase devices with the lowest storage capacity. The plaintiffs allege that the harm that flows from the less than advertised capacity on Apple devices is compounded by Apple's "aggressive" marketing of iCloud, the monthly fee based storage system. In terms that are a bit dramatic, the plaintiffs write "[d]efendant gives less storage capacity than advertised, only to offer to sell that capacity in a desperate moment, e.g., when a consumer is trying to record or take photos at a child or grandchild’s recital, basketball game or wedding." The complaint further criticizes Apple for not permitting the user to access cloud storage from other vendors, use an SD card or other non-Apple storage units, or freely transfer files between devices and a PC using a "file manager" utility.

The table in this image is a screen capture from the civil complaint. It depicts the discrepancy between represented storage capacity, and storage capacity actually available to purchasers on certain iPhones and iPads (with iOS 8 installed).

In a somewhat humorous dig at Apple's recent marketing campaign regarding iOS8, attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote "Rather ironically, Apple touts iOS 8 as “The biggest iOS release ever.” Of course, Apple is not referring to the literal size of iOS 8, which appears to be entirely undisclosed in its voluminous marketing materials extolling the purported virtues of iOS 8." One of the big problems with encouraging individuals to upgrade to iOS8 is that the software uses a substantial amount of storage capacity, (between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space ), yet "[a]t present, Apple does not enable users who have upgraded to iOS 8 to revert back to iOS 7 or another operating system."

The case was assigned to Magistrate Judge Nathanael M. Cousins, Apple has not yet responded to the complaint.